NO frigging snow…I would have loved a bit of snow, I have waited for the snow to fall in Sheffield like a child waits for the ice cream van…but all I have had instead are all these Snowflake types wittering on everytime I put the television on to see if the weather forecast is saying “Yes, it will snow”, these whiney snowflake types are really starting to do my box in, why do I call them “Snowflakes” ? I call them Snowflakes because they are in a permanent state of melt down most of the time, they are so bloody fragile!!

Whine, whine, whine…Don’t get me wrong, I like wine but whining rubs me up the wrong way.

It gets on my bloody nerves, all I seem to hear lately is some person or other is offended by something that the vast majority of people allow to pass without barely lifting an eyebrow. Everytime I turn the television on there seems to be an anti Trump protest or an anti Brexit protest, how about protesting something that really matters?

How about protesting why we have homeless people sleeping rough on our streets and begging in our city centers?

How about getting vocal about how the rich seem to be getting richer and the poor are getting poorer?

How about having a riot in protest of why Tony Blair is still a free man?

Nah…

Donald Trump is an easy target, the British Bias Corporation , makers of fake news and other assorted leftist infiltrated media outlets have instructed the sheeple to be offended, the celebrities of tinsel town have also spoken, they have announced thier offence and have instructed thier minions to be likewise offended…Get fucked.

I live in a normal house on a normal street in a normal estate, the witterings of some multimillionaire politicians, news moguls or film stars will have zero effect on my life, they do not live my life, they do not understand my life they have no idea what my aspirations are nor do they comprehend my fears.

So…They can fuck off.

They can fuck off and when they get there they can fuck off a bit more….and then a little bit more and if they haven’t managed to fuck off the edge of a cliff or under a bus they can fuck off till they do, if they think that I am going to lose sleep over Donald Trump “grabbing some pussy” they can think again, if I was a billionaire I would grab so much pussy they would call me the “Crazy cat man of Sheffield”, I would have cat flaps fitted to all my doors and I would put out bowls of kit-e-kat just to entice even more pussy into my “grab range”.

Who am I kidding?

Everyone knows I am a dog man…But for the sake of pissing off some lefty “whinos” lets me continue to pretend I like to grab me some pussay!

Millions of people love pussy….

It is what makes the world go round…and…Let us be honest most of the highest quality pussy that has ever walked the earth actually enjoys being grabbed by billionaires…millionaires even and if “I” were to win the Euro Lottery quadruple rollover and wake up Wednesday morning with £234 million quid in the bank I would instantly be far more attractive to the world population of high end pussy, so much so that Tina, my wife would buy herself a “pussy stick ” and start whacking the mercenary little felines around the head and neck like Saudi Arabian husband that had found his wife driving the car or out having a coffee with her girlfriends without the permission or supervision of a suitable male escort.

Now that is something to protest about…the sexist, bigoted, homophobic rules of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Somalia, Yemen and another half dozen backwards looking world destinations that rate low on the average citizen IQ scale …but most of them have oil or lithium or gold and diamonds…so they can do what they like…they can even throw atheists in prison for not participating in the delusion that is organised religion and if you think that is harsh, be thankful you are not gay…not because being gay is in anyway shape or form unnatural even though I admit here and now it isn’t my cup of tea but whatever floats your boat but because they will throw you off a very tall building until you are dead…seriously.

Thrown off a building until you are dead for being gay…wow

And we have gay people in the West protesting about Donald Trump placing travel bans on a list of countries most of which condemn homosexuality as a crime, a crime punishable by death in some cases…seriously…You cannot make this shit up. Libtards.

Anyway…shall we proceed?

Once again it is the time of year when the good and the great of the chub fishing community come together and fish the AGM of the Chub Study Group, I also tag along as I too am a member of the Chub Study Group or CSG as I will refer to it from now on , I am however generally still struggling with the concept of just “chub fishing”, I am getting better though.

For as long as I have been a member we have been having our AGM’s at the Red Lion in Bredwardine and as venues go it is for me second to none.

The fishing is around Bredwardine on the River Wye is very varied and by varied I mean you have options of species to go at and to make things evern better it is on the doorstep, the beer is good and the company is better, come the AGM Sunday I did think that I would be in with an outside chance of regaining The CAT trophy for best multiple fish catch with an early season blast that had fish of 7lb. 6lb 9oz, 5lb 14oz and 4lb 14 oz added to my returns in the CSG data base

I shall share with you an excerpt of the email I sent in , it isn’t hard to tell that my fishing was changing

“The other thing that I am finding is the habit of taking a quick matt shot in the margins for the vast majority of fish rather than the full blown trophy photo shoot…old habits dying I suppose

I was over the moon with this catch, it gave me my first 6lb chub of the season as well as my third 7lb fish which when combined with the 6lb 9oz fish gives me my biggest brace pb of 13lb 9oz and resulted in me bagging another bottle for my personal best collection.

The method used may not be everyone’s cup of tea but it is very very effective at sorting out bigger than average fish.”

I would say that since July 2016 it has changed even further still, my shave with death that September really has altered the way I feel about things.

I am now just happy to be out fishing…and so It was with heavy heart I saw the river levels on the Wye flying up not 48 hours before we were to drive down to fish, the levels just kept on going until they peaked at well over 4 meters of flood water, my only consolation was that even though the Wye goes up quick it generally goes down just as fast, 24 hour before we set off the river was falling, the only question now was how fast would it fall?

By the time Martin arrived to pick me up it was down below 3 meters of flood water I knew that 2014 I had fished at well over 2.5 meters of flood water and had in fact landed my personal best pike in such adverse conditions, an absolute crocodile of a creature that came in at 23lb 4oz

My plans to fish solely for chub therefore went straight out of the window, I had to spread my bets…and so we nipped into 6am tackle at Swallow Nest Sheffield to pick up some dead baits from his well stocked freezer, I chose Pollan and my bogey bait Lamprey.

I have had more chub and barbel on lamprey than I have had pike but I know it catches fish, and I know it bleeds like the cracked and shattered heart of a liberal fundamentalist when they realise that Donald Trump is still POTUS.

So why is the blood so important?

Because the river would not be running clear, the pike would be feeding on smell…It isn’t rocket science.

Martin and myself dropped in for a breakfast as we reached the Hereford border some three hours after leaving Sheffield , I did my best to swallow a full English ( I had a bruised and infected canine from my last hunt and the dentist had placed me on a regime of antibiotics and pain killers…I wanted morphine but she said Ibuprofen and Co-codamol doubled up would suffice…pfft…) I looked longingly at my T34 tank, a decommissioned Russian battle tank of WWII that I successfully had my daughter Olivia believe that I had purchased to place in the front garden a few years previous, to say she wasn’t happy was an understatement…I thought it funny though so it is all good.

Anyway crack on Swordsy…

On the first sight of the the River Wye through some woods at 50mph my heart fluttered…It was in its banks!!

“Oh happy days!”

But it was high…Martin made the call that we would fish an area known to us rather than experiment on a new set of swims and so we headed down the field and into the flotsam and jetsam left by Storm Doris, the high water mark was well up and away from the river’s edge and the flood had obviously robbed one of the local farms of several hay bales as the contents stretched far, wide and deep , in fact this spongy stretch of ghay almost had me on my arse long before I reached the tricky part of wading a stream and then edging into the broken tangle that is a willow stand, the river Wye is a brutal neighbour and not something to play with lightly, do not test her patience, she will kill you.

That said, she had left me several swims free to have a go at, so two rods baited with slashed laprey sent out a pair of static rigs that utilised plasticine as weight and not lead , the reason being if my “plasticine lead” snags on the way in it will simply pull free, there is a lot of structure in the water and I want snags down to a minimum.

I say “static”, the first rig was static for all of five minutes…

The Delkim chimed up and sang the song of her people as the clip pulled free and I went to war with whatever had taken a liking to Lamprey.

Get in!

What a nice start to the day!

12lb 10z and as my opiate addled brother from another mother Sherlock Holmes would say ” the game is afoot”

The game was certainly afoot because withing an hour I had landed another pike this time a little better at 13lb 4oz again it had taken the lamprey , I had messed about with the Pollan but the “head” just wasn’t having it, the pike wanted lamprey.

The day ticked along and just as the sun began to hit the tops of the trees signalling the time I needed to make my retreat from Fanghorn the left hand Delkim chirped up for the first time…now…This rod was fishing the swim I had landed my 23lb 4oz pb from….oooh…bum twitch time.

I would down I struck into a lump, I cannot let it run, I have to hook and hold, the rod is hooping, I am not worried, my Mark Tunley rods are not cheapo shit, they have the poke for the job in hand, the Shiman gives about six inches of line…too much, its all on the rod and line…..the line is singing….the net is out and the prize is mine, she is fat, she is very fat but she is short, the scales say 17lb 10oz and that is that…

3 fish from a river out of sorts but more importantly from a river that is still dropping fast…but…the weather forecast for Saturday is shit, very shit with strong winds and heavy rain by mid morning.

A good night was spent at the Red Lion pub, most anglers had landed a few fish, mine was the biggest though lol!!

Saturday morning saw me back in the same area but this time I was going to fish for the chub, the river was about a foot lower now and the colour was just thinking about dropping out of it, all in all it was about as good as I could have expected it to be considering the flood pulse that had passed through 48 hours previous

Settling myself into a swim where I could comfortably fish a sleeper rod for the pike but concentrate on the tip for a chub I set about avoiding the “blank”

That didn’t take long…a chub of 4lb 1oz wrapped the rod around into an angle that had me thinking for a second I was attached to my first barbel of the season, the Wye is a fast flowing and powerful river at Bredwardine and so all fish feel far in excess of thier size!

Soon after I had another fish…a sea trout or silver coloured brown trout, either way it was Salmo Trutta with taste for my chub bait.

The next time the tip went over it was an even more spirited fight, that had the reel giving line at will, I couldn’t over bully this fish nor did I have to apart from a bush in the water and a half sunken reed bed there was nothing to worry about snag wise.

Eventually I began to win ground on the fish and when I saw that it was a chub my heart started to say “6″ , it was a far heavier build than the fist and this was born out by the tale of the tape, this fish was an inch longer and an inch and a quarter fatter in the girth but it was still way off what would have been needed to make 6lb…the scales said 5lb and no amount of persuasion on my part would change Reubens mind.

I slipped the chub back and got myself comfortable again only to be rudely disturbed by an irritable Delkim signaling that what was once static was now mobile and mobile are a rate of knots more suited to a ship of the line….Ooooh….What will it be?

You guessed it, it was a pike of 12lb 9oz, the drizzle that had me take mat shots of the chub relented for a moment and I took the chance to take a self timer shot, its not bad but I do prefer a camera man if truth be told.

That I thought would be that, Martin had made the call that we should be off by the time to heavens opened up and so I slipped the pike back and began the task of breaking camp, deadbaits were thrown in and assorted chub baits dropped into the edge, finally I made my “last cast”

My last cast lasted all of thirty seconds, I must have hit the chub on the nose because the rod ripped round almost as soon as it settled and once again a spirited fish, a feisty river and a semi-drugged up angler ( my codeine was wearing out) conspired to bring forth another epic battle of wills.

The line did not snap, the hook held the rod and reel did what they do best and the fish came in eventually, another good fish that I had guessed well over 4lb was given the number of 5lb and not quite 10z by the Reubens…happy days!

And of “Last Casts”

I purchased number 22/40 of the leather bound copies of the late great Terry Lampards book of that same name, there will never be another Lampard, it sits by the side of Tony Miles 50 Years on the Ouse.

It will be treasured.

Down on the Field

Not a deal is happening…let this winter pass now for I am bored of it. a few plants are starting to show growth but for the most part it is dormant, the Comma, Small Tortoise and Peacock will show any day now and I have seen a bumble bee so let Spring be upon us and let this coming year be a good one for the butterflies as last year was poor,

On a final point, if you have enjoyed my witterings please feel free to press “share” on your social media, a few more likes and views can never go amiss, a few dislikes and arguments are also welcome, you cannot please everyone all the time you know

Best regards

Lee

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